The Eyes are Gates to the Soul
by BrandSpankingNew
Summary: Cal has a little slip. No big deal. Nothing that Abelia Roo didn't deserve. But he's okay, really, because he has Niko. Nik always knows how to remind him who he is. Set during "Roadkill" and rated T for a brief spanking and language, because Cal.


I felt it again. That anger...hunger...need. To open a gate. To rip, to tear, to—

I shook my head hard. No. No. Sophia may have named me Caliban, taunted me with my monster heritage, but I wasn't a monster. Nik had made damned sure I wasn't a monster. He'd refused. He'd raised me to be a man.

And yet, I was monster too. Auphe. And I couldn't forget it. And neither could anyone else.

Abelia Roo's eyes were on me, frightened and angry. Well, I had barged into her home. But her fear had nothing to do with that and everything to do with the Auphe blood coursing through my veins. Pounding through my veins, truly, my heart thumping like it did when Niko took us on a "leisurely" ten mile run through Central Park. Oh yes, I could change her mind. All it would take...just a little swirl through time and space by way of some sickly gray light. Her mind would change, certainly. As would everything else.

I'm not sure if the thought caused the action or the action caused the thought, but either way, there was a tiny pinprick of gray light behind her, swirling. It grew as I watched, the size of a baseball, then a melon. It pulsed malignantly, a cancer of gray light devouring the world. And I watched it.

Her front door banged again, and I glanced away from the gate. Niko was standing there, his eyes narrowed. "Cal!" he rebuked sharply.

The gate collapsed without a sign it had ever been there. But Niko's gray eyes were as sharp as his katana, and I knew damned well that he had seen it. "Outside, now." Oh yeah. He'd seen it.

I shoved my way past Abelia Roo without a thought for her ancient, wrinkled frailty. She had none. That was one bitch who would function perfectly until she dropped dead at the age of 172.

Niko grabbed my arm as I approached and yanked me from the rusty trailer. He didn't say a word as we made our way back to the car. He didn't have to. I knew my brother. He was pissed.

I started to climb into the driver's seat when a hand snagged the back of my shirt and jeans and helped me all the way through to the passenger side of the bench seat and halfway out the open window. "I guess we're having that talk now?" I managed to say, staring down at the gravel. I felt the vehicle dip as Nik settled himself behind the driver's wheel.

"I thought that we agreed, no more gates Cal." His voice was deceptively calm and steady. It always was when he was this close to losing his temper.

"You did the very thing I told you not to do. Deliberately. And now, here we are." Very, very controlled. Not a good sign.

"Nik..." I started to push myself back into the passenger's seat. I wanted to defend myself. Desperately. Wanted to let my brother know that I wasn't really a monster, no matter if I was doing a good impression of one. But what could I say, considering that I wasn't sorry? I only got half a second of warning as he grabbed my belt loop, keeping me half-outside the window

_Smack_! His hand landed hard on my ass, and I yelped, surprised, as a burning pain bloomed. Really I should have known. This was Nik after all. And he did have a certain fondness for physical correction. Considering my age I'd expected him to _kick_ my ass, not spank it, but really, with Niko there wasn't a hell of a lot of difference.  
_  
Smack! Smack_! Two more hard, precise strikes landed against the backs of my upper thighs and I jerked but managed to keep my mouth shut this time, not wanting to provide any entertainment to the Rom. The idea of an Auphe getting his ass paddled by his big brother would probably send them into paroxysms.

Niko yanked on the back of my jeans, pulling me into the car. I grunted as my ass hit the seat. It had been awhile since he'd last spanked me, but he apparently had no difficulty remembering how to inflict the maximum amount of pain in the shortest period of time. Already, my butt was burning.

"This conversation is not over," Niko said, his voice still deadly calm. "But I am not willing to make a spectacle of us in the middle of a trailer park."

The drive back to the loft was silent. Heavy. Niko was breathing very evenly, in that way that told me he was attempting to meditate. I stared out the window.

I didn't say anything. What could I say? I could apologize, but I wasn't sorry, and Niko knew it as well as I did. Abelia Roo deserved way more than a little fear from a hole made of gray light. She'd nearly cost my brother his life. She'd nearly cost me _everything_. Every damn thing. No, I wasn't sorry. And that wasn't Caliban the Auphe talking...that was Cal. Me.

We walked up the stairs as usual, Niko on my heels. I unlocked the door and flopped down onto the couch as I usually did. Niko stayed on his feet. "We're finishing this conversation," he said, staring down at me.

"What are you gonna do Nik, paddle me?" I asked him casually. I'd never been afraid of Niko, and at twenty-one, wasn't afraid of pain either. And Niko knew it.

"I should," he said, ignoring how patently ridiculous this whole exchange was. "You lied to me, Cal."

"I didn't," I said. "I told you, I wouldn't use it. I didn't say I wouldn't show it." I didn't tell him how close I'd come to sending Abelia Roo through that gate though. There were some things that Nik didn't need to know.

"Get up," Niko ordered.

I grumbled, but got back on my feet knowing that if I didn't, Nik would dump me on the floor. Niko grabbed my arms and gave me a hard shake. "What were you thinking, Cal?"

The question didn't sound rhetorical. His eyes were intense on mine. I decided to answer him, to tell him the things he already knew. Sometimes, you just have to hear it.

"I almost lost you Nik. You almost fucking died. Directly due to that bitch's actions. Kick my ass, spank it, run it ragged around Central Park. whatever, but I'm not sorry. She deserved a hell of a lot more than that little light show I gave her." I stared Niko straight in the eyes, the exact same shade of gray as my own. "I treated her way better than she deserved. She knows it, I know it, and so do you."

His fingers were digging into my biceps. They hurt, but I ignored it. "Cal," he said. Just my name, nothing else.

"Yeah, Nik?"

His eyes on mine were so intense that they hurt, they burned. I felt like he was staring straight into my soul...if there was even such a thing. For humans, maybe. But for a half-human half-Auphe hybrid...did the soul exist? And if it did, did mine even matter anymore? Heavy shit. And Niko saw it all, swirling there, sickly gray. He gave his head a shake, as though he'd heard my thoughts. Heard them and denied them. No one knew me like my brother, after all.

"You're my brother Cal. Don't..." He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Don't forget that."

"I won't." And I wouldn't, couldn't.

After all, I had Nik to remind me.


End file.
